Apex Legends off to a solid start

It was assumed that Respawn, now under the umbrella of EA, would be working on Titanfall 3. And while that may still be in the studio's future, the studio's right now is tucked into the surprise release of their Battle Royale game, Apex Legends. Three days in from that release the right now looks pretty secure, as Apex Legends has topped 10 million players total and over 1 million concurrent. That's... that's a pretty big deal.

Battle Royale games are the rage. Apex Legends brings a bit more than your run of the mill BR game flooding the market. A bit more backstory (set in the Titanfall universe, the Titanverse if you will), a bit more variety in the wildly different character classes, and a bit more teamwork as players can either load into a group or are paired in the matchmaking when queueing solo. End result are those gaudy player numbers, not to mention the Twitch marketshare the game is grabbing, regularly seeming to snatch up twice the streaming marketshare of the elephant in the BR room, Fortnite.

Where Apex Legends goes from here is anybody's guess. Can it really challenge Fortnite for top spot long term or will the gloss wear off? Who knows? But we can say the launch has been a tremendous success and I have to believe a lot of that has been simply because the game appeared out of nowhere, from a fantastic studio with a great fanbase, and we haven't been spending the last months after a too-early announcement of the project cynically eye-rolling over YABRG (yet another battle royale game).

BR games are not my cup of tea. But I do have a lot of respect for Respawn and adore the Titanfall series. The scuttlebutt around the office on Apex Legends is that it is a joy to watch the top streamers play, and a lot of fun going in as a group. Solo queueing is a much different experience because when your forced "teammates" start the match deploying in opposite directions and go Rambo on you, forgoing any semblance of teamwork it ends in a pretty short lived experience. So maybe if I can get a squad together, I might jump in and test those waters myself. Until then, I'm happy to see Respawn go from strength to strength. Now go make Titanfall 3! Pretty please...